The History of a Crime, Victor Hugo [white hot kiss .TXT] 📗
- Author: Victor Hugo
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Towards noon the centre of Paris began to grow agitated.
Our appeal to arms was first seen placarded on the Place de la Bourse and the Rue Montmartre. Groups pressed round to read it, and battled with the police, who endeavored to tear down the bills. Other lithographic placards contained in two parallel columns the decree of deposition drawn up by the Right at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and the decree of outlawry voted by the Left. There were distributed, printed on gray paper in large type, the judgment of the High Court of Justice, declaring Louis Bonaparte attainted with the Crime of High Treason, and signed "Hardouin" (President), "Delapalme," "Moreau" (of the Seine), "Cauchy," "Bataille" (Judges). This last name was thus mis-spelt by mistake, it should read "Pataille."
At that moment people generally believed, and we ourselves believed, in this judgment, which, as we have seen, was not the genuine judgment.
At the same time they posted in the populous quarters, at the corner of every street, two Proclamations. The first ran thus:—
"ARTICLE III.10
"The Constitution is confided to the keeping and to the patriotism of
French citizens. Louis NAPOLEON is outlawed.
"The State of Siege is abolished.
"Universal suffrage is re-established.
"LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC.
"To ARMS!
"For the United Mountain.
"The Delegate, VICTOR HUGO."
The second ran thus:—
"The National Guards and the People of the Departments are marching on
Paris to aid you in seizing the TRAITOR, Louis Napoléon BONAPARTE.
"For the Representatives of the People,
"VICTOR HUGO, President.
"SCHOELCHER, Secretary."
This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was distributed abroad, says an historian of the coup d'état, by thousands of copies.
For their part the criminals installed in the Government offices replied by threats: the great white placards, that is to say, the official bills, were largely multiplied. On one could be read:—
"Decree as follows:—
"ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited. They will be
immediately dispersed by force.
"ARTICLE II. All seditious shouts, all reading in public, all posting
of political documents not emanating from a regularly constituted
authority, are equally prohibited.
"ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will enforce the execution
of the present decree.
"Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 3, 1851.
"DE MAUPAS, Prefect of Police.
"Seen and approved,
"DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
On another could be read,—
"By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,
"Decrees:—
"Every person taken constructing or defending a barricade, or carrying
arms, WILL BE SHOT.
"General of Division,
"Minister of war,
"DE SAINT-ARNAUD."
We reproduce this Proclamation exactly, even to the punctuation. The words "Will be shot" were in capital letters in the placards signed "De Saint-Arnaud."
The Boulevards were thronged with an excited crowd. The agitation increasing in the centre reached three Arrondissements, the 6th, 7th, and the 12th. The district of the schools began to disorderly. The Students of Law and of Medicine cheered De Flotte on the Place de Panthéon. Madier de Montjau, ardent and eloquent, went through and aroused Belleville. The troops, growing more numerous every moment, took possession of all the strategical points of Paris.
At one o'clock, a young man was brought to us by the legal adviser of the Workmen's Societies, the ex-Constituent Leblond, at whose house the Committee had deliberated that morning. We were sitting in permanence, Carnot, Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself. This young man, who had an earnest mode of speaking and an intelligent countenance, was named King. He had been sent to us by the Committee of the Workmen's Society, from whom he was delegated. "The Workmen's Societies," he said to us, "place themselves at the disposal of the Committee of Legal Insurrection appointed by the Left. They can throw into the struggle five or six thousand resolute men. They will manufacture powder; as for guns, they will be found." The Workmen's Society requested from us an order to fight signed by us. Jules Favre took a pen and wrote,—"The undersigned Representatives authorize Citizen King and his friends to defend with them, and with arms in their hands, Universal Suffrage, the Republic, the Laws." He dated it, and we all four signed it. "That is enough," said the delegate to us, "you will hear of us."
Two hours afterwards it was reported to us that the conflict had begun. They were fighting in the Rue Aumaire.
10 A typographical error—it should read "Article LXVIII." On the subject of this placard the author of this book received the following letter. It does honor to those who wrote it:—
have not been able to obtain it. We replace it by these bills which we
sign with your name. You will not disown us. When France is in danger
your name belongs to all; your name is a Public Power.
"FELIX BONY.
"DABAT."
CHAPTER V. BAUDINS'S CORPSE
With regard to the Faubourg St. Antoine, we had, as I said, lost nearly all hope, but the men of the coup d'état had not lost all uneasiness. Since the attempts at rising and the barricades of the morning a rigorous supervision had been organized. Any one who entered the Faubourg ran the risk of being examined, followed, and upon the slightest suspicion, arrested. The supervision was nevertheless sometimes at fault. About two o'clock a short man, with an earnest and attentive air, crossed the Faubourg. A sergent de ville and a police agent in plain clothes barred his passage. "Who are you?" "You seem a passenger." "Where are you going?" "Over there, close by, to Bartholomé's, the overseer of the sugar manufactory.—" They search him. He himself opened his pocket-book; the police agents turned out the pockets of his waistcoat and unbuttoned his shirt over his breast; finally the sergent de ville said gruffly, "Yet I seem to have seen you here before this morning. Be off!" It was the Representative Gindrier. If they had not stopped at the pockets of his waistcoat—and if they had searched his great-coat, they would have found his sash there—Gindrier would have been shot.
Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the combat—such was the watchword of the members of the Left. That is why we had our sashes upon us, but not outwardly visible.
Gindrier had had no food that day; he thought he would go home, and returned to the new district of the Havre Railway Station, where he resided. In the Rue de Calais, which is a lonely street running from Rue Blanche to the Rue de Clichy, a fiacre passed him. Gindrier heard his name called out. He turned round and saw two persons in a fiacre, relations of Baudin, and a man whom he did not know. One of the relations of Baudin, Madame L——, said to him, "Baudin is wounded!" She added, "They have taken him to the St. Antoine Hospital. We are going to fetch him. Come with us." Gindrier got into the fiacre. The stranger, however, was an emissary of the Commissary of Police of the Rue Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine. He had been charged by the commissary of Police to go to Baudin's house, No, 88, Rue de Clichy, to inform the family. Having only found the women at home he had confined himself to telling them that Representative Baudin was wounded. He offered to accompany them, and went with them in the fiacre. They had uttered the name of Gindrier before him. This might have been imprudent. They spoke to him; he declared that he would not betray the Representative, and it was settled that before the Commissary of Police Gindrier should assume to be a relation, and be called Baudin.
The poor women still hoped. Perhaps the wound was serious, but Baudin was young, and had a good constitution. "They will save him," said they. Gindrier was silent. At the office of the Commissary of Police the truth was revealed.—"How is he?" asked Madame L—— on entering. "Why?" said the Commissary, "he is dead." "What do you mean? Dead!" "Yes; killed on the spot."
This was a painful moment. The despair of these two women who had been so abruptly struck to the heart burst forth in sobs. "Ah, infamous Bonaparte!" cried Madame L——. "He has killed Baudin. Well, then, I will kill him. I will be the Charlotte Corday of this Marat."
Gindrier claimed the body of Baudin. The Commissary of Police only consented to restore it to the family on exacting a promise that they would bury it at once, and without any ostentation, and that they would not exhibit it to the people. "You understand," he said, "that the sight of a Representative killed and bleeding might raise Paris." The coup d'état made corpses, but did not wish that they should be utilized.
On these conditions the Commissary of Police gave Gindrier two men and a safe conduct to fetch the body of Baudin from the hospital where he had been carried.
Meanwhile Baudin's brother, a young man of four-and-twenty, a medical student, came up. This young man has since been arrested and imprisoned. His crime is his brother. Let us continue. They proceeded to the hospital. At the sight of the safe conduct the director ushered Gindrier and young Baudin into the parlor. There were three pallets there covered with white sheets, under which could be traced the motionless forms of three human bodies. The one which occupied the centre bed was Baudin. On his right lay the young soldier killed a minute before him by the side of Schoelcher, and on the left an old woman who had been struck down by a spent ball in the Rue de Cotte, and whom the executioners of the coup d'état had gathered up later on; in the first moment one cannot find out all one's riches.
The three corpses were naked under their winding sheets.
They had left to Baudin alone his shirt and his flannel vest. They had found on him seven francs, his gold watch and chain, his Representative's medal, and a gold pencil-case which he had used in the Rue de Popincourt, after having passed me the other pencil, which I still preserve. Gindrier and young Baudin, bare-headed, approached the centre bed. They raised the shroud, and Baudin's dead face became visible. He was calm, and seemed asleep. No feature appeared contracted. A livid tint began to mottle his face.
They drew up an official report. It is customary. It is not sufficient to kill people. An official report must also be drawn up. Young Baudin had to sign it, upon which, on the demand of the Commissary of Police,
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